


walk me home (in the dead of night)

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 13:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20390779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: 5 times that Oliver Queen walked Felicity Smoak home, and the 1 time he walked home without her





	walk me home (in the dead of night)

_ Walk me home in the dead of night _

_ I can’t be alone with all that’s on my mind _

_ So say you’ll stay with me tonight _

_ ‘Cause there is so much wrong going on outside _

_ P!nk - Walk Me Home _

“You really don’t have to do this,” Felicity insists for what feels like the thousandth time that evening.

“Felicity, it’s okay. Of course, I’m going to make sure you get home safely.” 

Oliver really doesn’t mind. Her car is in the shop and it turns out she doesn’t live too far from the foundry. He’s not too thrilled that she lives in the Glades but she’s assured him that now that she knows what happens in her neighborhood that she’s not going to be renewing her lease and she’s going to start looking for a place in a safer area. But with Diggle on a rarely taken night off and Oliver’s motorcycle something that Felicity is firmly against taking, they’re walking back to her place. 

“Still, it's late and I’m sure you’re exhausted from all the...vigilante-ing,” she said, wringing her glove covered hands in front of her.

Oliver just smiles to himself, watching her out of the corner of his eye. She looks guilty over him taking time out of his evening just to see her home, but he knows that he wouldn’t dream of letting her walk home at this time of night on her own - or at any time of night, in this area. If nothing else, it’s the gentlemanly thing, right? It’s on the nights that she’s bundled up in her big coat and heading home that he’s reminded of just how young she is compared to himself and Diggle. Clinging to her early twenties rather than the later years like himself, he couldn’t let her walk through the city alone at this hour any easier than he could let Thea do it.

He shakes off the idea that Thea probably does do it, and knocks his shoulder gently against Felicity’s. “You know me. I don’t need much sleep.”

She does know him. Or at least, she’s starting to. In these few months with her working alongside them, she’s become as much a fixture as the foundations themselves. It’s almost as though she was supposed to be there all along; like their team was incomplete as a duo. She’s their glue, holding their crusade together and reminding them exactly why they’re doing this - for Walter. For the greater good. Because helping people is the right thing to do. 

They walk mostly in silence, talking in broken fragments about their week. He tells her somewhat about the pressures from his mother. She tells him about how awful her supervisor is; he mostly listens while he wonders exactly how she’s not the supervisor herself with her capabilities. They’re back at her place before he even realizes it because talking to her is easy and natural and he really does enjoy it (when he doesn’t really like talking to anyone at all). 

“Goodnight, Oliver,” she tells him with a somewhat shy smile when she’s safely inside her front door and he’s hovering outside to make sure that door is closed and locked before he leaves her for the night. “Thank you for walking me home.”

“You’re welcome,” he nods back at her, tapping her doorframe with a smile. “Goodnight, Felicity.”

\----

Slade’s devastation in the city is far from over.

Starling City has dealt with catalytic events before, even the previous year in the Glades, but part of Oliver has expected the city to be somewhat organized after the chaos by the time they come back from locking Slade away on Lian Yu. But it isn’t. Not by a long shot.

Most of the roads are unusable still, so when they arrive back Felicity can’t get home around the rubbled barricades that have blocked off her route home. Oliver’s glad that she’s moved further into the city since her days in the Glades because people are still heavily looting there and he wouldn’t be able to sleep if she was going back there, but she’s run some checks and her electricity and water seem to be working fine and she’s upgraded her home with some pretty substantial security so he’s fairly certain that her home is going to be safe. He is going to do a sweep of the townhouse before he lets her stay there alone.

He doesn’t want to leave her there alone at all, but he thinks he’s going to have to let her have her independence on this one. He doesn’t exactly have anywhere safer to offer her right now. She’s still got dried blood crusting on her hairline though, and while they’re out of danger territory for a head wound she’s been suffering a concussion on and off and he was trying not to enjoy the way it combined with her fear of heights and she’d let her aching head rest on his shoulder on the plane ride back. 

They walk back to her house on heightened tensions, Oliver carefully anticipating danger in each step while she stumbles around the discarded bricks and broken pipework that litters the ground. She trusts that she can let her guard down like this because Oliver’s not going to lead her anywhere dangerous and he’s grateful that she can trust that about him. This last year has been full of tensions; first with him leaving for Lian Yu himself after Tommy’s death and then Sara’s return, the pressure of Slade. 

Oh, and him telling her that he loves her in his abandoned family home. They haven’t talked about that really yet, other than on the beaches of Lian Yu where she’s brought up the idea of them being an unthinkable concept.

For something being unthinkable, he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since. 

But they can’t talk about that because the city may be safe from Slade, but now they have far more realistic dangers to deal with like broken power lines, burst mains and the lingering property fires that resulted from the damage. Cars have been smashed into, homes looted and while the devastation mildly clears the closer they get to her neighborhood, they’re still relieved to see that her house is still standing and free from any visible property damage.

She silently lets them in and allows Oliver to enter first so he can check everything is as safe as it looks. He’s still not fully convinced on leaving her but once he’s made sure that her water is running safe, none of her windows show signs of any forced entry, and that her house is secure enough for her to sleep in without any future danger. While he does that, she’s checking her own personal security system and when he arrives back in the living room they seem equally satisfied that she’s safe there

But equally unwilling for him to leave.

“Where are you going to stay?” she asks him.

“I’ll go to the foundry, make sure everything is still safe there.”

“Don’t,” she insists quickly. Too quickly. “I mean, it might not be safe and you’d be there alone and-”

“I’ll be okay,” he assures her lightly. Her concern for him is always touching. Everyone else knows that he would be fine there alone under any circumstances, but she still worries regardless and he’s starting to enjoy the idea that she cares for his wellbeing to the same extent that he does for hers. 

“There’s nowhere to sleep down there,” she reminds him tiredly. “Please. Stay here, take the couch. I mean, you might not fit, my couch is tiny compared to you but it’s still better than the floor and-”

“Felicity,” he stops her rambling with a gentle mention of her name. “The couch would be fine, thank you.”

She just nods at him, assured that he’s going to be close by tonight and he’s glad of the same thing. He knows that the couch is going to be a squeeze but she’s getting out her guest blankets babbling about how they’re really soft and she’s the only one who uses them anyway because she’s not had guests since she moved and in her old small apartment she used to give her mother her bed when she stayed over. 

He falls asleep knowing that he’s between her and any danger.

It’s the best night's sleep he can remember having. 

\---

They’re leaving in a few hours. Oliver can’t quite believe they’re really going. 

It’s time for him to leave Starling City and he’s glad that Felicity wants to come with him.

Thea’s giving him her car so that they can get on the road as soon as possible. It’s a little two-seater with a small trunk but they aren’t going to need any more space than that. He’s going to leave Felicity to pack, go and pack what few possessions he has scattered around Thea’s apartment, and then they’re going to set off for a night. There’s no point waiting until tomorrow. They’re going to stop in the nearest motel to sleep and plan out what comes next, and (maybe) sleep.

Except leaving Felicity right now is hard, even when it’s for the promise of something better. He’s on her doorstep and he’s trying to leave but every time she kisses him it’s getting out of control and if they’re not careful they’re just going to end up staying at hers and leaving tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after that. 

“You have to go,” Felicity tells him between kisses. 

He’s not really listening, but his hands are winding up in her hair. “Hmm.”

“Oliver, you have to go pack.”

He pulls away reluctantly. For the seventh time. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“I’m going to need more than an hour,” she points out to him.

“Then you can do it while I’m here,” he muses. “But I’ll be here in an hour.”

“I won’t get anything done,” she laughs lightly. “Go, go get ready and let’s get out of here.”

They don’t get anything done. She’s right about that. They leave the following evening.

\---

“Thanks. For this. You didn’t have to-”

“Felicity, it’s fine,” he assures her for the twelfth time.

It’s awkward now when he walks her home. They’re not together. There’s no assurance that they will be again but a life without Felicity’s presence is not one that he can consider so they’re trying desperately to be friends, to be civil, and maybe if he can show her that he can be trusted again then maybe there will be hope for them in the future. But for now, they’re trying to exist together in a world without love.

It’s hard. He does love her. So much.

But she’s trusting him again and her back wheel got destroyed by some teenagers and it’s in the shop, but now they’re the only ones down in the bunker it’s hard for her to ask anyone else to get her home safely at night. 

When she asks him to walk her home she rambles for three minutes about how it doesn’t mean anything and she just doesn’t want to walk home by herself now that she knows what the city is like at night and while he agrees straight away, he knows that to him it does mean something. It means another step forward.

Their walk home is silent. None of their sentences are finished. They don’t finish each other's sentences like they used to. Just a year ago they were strolling down exotic beaches, swinging their hands together or looping their arms entirely around each other, and that was much better than this. Oliver shoves his hands deep into his pockets because the temptation to reach out for her hand is far too strong, and he can’t risk pushing her further away when she’s all he has now. He doesn’t have anyone else but her. 

“Goodnight, Oliver,” she tells him at the door.

It doesn’t feel that long ago that she used to finish that sentence with ‘I love you’ but he can’t even see her bite her lip to stop the words.

She doesn’t even try to say them anymore.

“Goodnight, Felicity.”

\---

“You really-”

“-don’t have to do this?” Oliver finishes for her. She just laughs back at him because she’s doing that a lot now - laughing.

They’re okay. They are. They aren’t really official but they are as official as they can be considering they don’t want to add any more upheaval to William’s life, but Oliver’s still glad that he can walk her home even if he can’t stay over. They’re somehow at a stage where they privately can’t keep their hands off each other and yet he’s barely lingering for an hour afterward because he’s got to get home to his son. Raisa’s good to stay late but his relationship with William is still fragmented at best and staying out all night isn’t going to help that.

“You know that I do,” Oliver finishes for her. “I don’t want you to be in any danger.”

“Oliver, I  _ am  _ the security for this building,” she points out as they step out of the elevator and proceed to her front door. The one that used to be theirs. 

“I remember,” he muses, one hand propping himself on the wall as she roots around for her keys.

She catches him glancing at his watch. “What time do you need to be back for William?” she asks him somewhat hopefully.

But her hope is short-lived because he sighs. “I have twenty minutes,” he adds regretfully.

“Okay,” she smiles back at him, and she enters the loft but leaves the door wide open for him to follow her. When he waits in the doorway, she looks back over her shoulder. “I know what you can do in twenty minutes.”

\---

The streets here are almost silent at night, and Oliver thinks that’s what he loves most about their quiet little street that’s more part of the forest than the local town. He can’t hear the cars from the main road, he can barely even hear the noise from their neighbor's homes because they’re just as quiet - everyone here seeks the same peace that they do, and he’s loving this life for them so far.

The closer he gets to his home, he smiles. 

He can already see the windows are lit, the ones that allow him to see directly through to the kitchen where he can see his wife making a fresh bottle for their daughter. She’s just transitioning onto formula now, in fact, that’s what he’s carrying new tins of in his shopping bags, but Mia clearly isn’t planning on waiting for her father to get back from the store before demanding her evening meal. 

She’s a girl that knows what she wants. It’s often food. 

He can even hear his little girl crying as he gets closer - the kitchen window is ajar slightly and he can hear Felicity over the top of her, assuring her that it’s okay, momma’s doing your bottle sweetheart, daddy’s on his way home, and  _ this _ is his life now.

He hopes it never changes.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Please consider leaving a review, it would mean so much!
> 
> you can follow me on:  
tumblr: cheeruplovely  
twitter: ghostfoxlovely


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